What was the organ a memorial to?

Lampen described it as “the dedication of a lasting memorial to this remarkable historical incident, the sojourn of 750 British soldiers in this valley”. He added: “This organ will be a valuable monument to our soldiers, and we hope to put up a brass tablet to state the fact of the organ having been built as a memorial to the British interned troops.”

Who played at the dedication?

An organ recital was given by Mr. G. Middleton Rowe, A.R.C.M., organist of All Saints’, Vevey. Lampen also recorded that “our soldier organist, Lance-Corpl. Lester, is a great help in the services of the church”. Although a driving snow blizzard prevented many from attending, “a large congregation assembled to assist in the setting apart of the organ for the service of God”.

Chateau d'Oex (from Greater Britain Messenger, page 60)

Q: When was the memorial organ at St Peter’s dedicated?

The Rev. E. Dudley Lampen wrote: “On Thursday, March 8, the organ, which has been placed in St. Peter’s Church to commemorate the historic stay of the British soldiers in Château d’Oex, was solemnly dedicated by the Rural Dean, and opened by Colonel S. C. F. Jackson, D.S.O., the Senior Officer in command, who made an effective and sympathetic speech.”

The Greater Britain Messenger — date not established (issue undated). One of St Peter’s First World War documents, from the years when British prisoners of war were interned at Château-d’Œx, 1916–17. Transcribed in full from the bound volumes of the Greater Britain Messenger.

In this report: the dedication of the organ on Thursday 8 March 1917, opened by Colonel S. C. F. Jackson, as a memorial to the sojourn of 750 British soldiers in the valley.

← All archive documents

Headline as printed: Chateau d’Oex (from Greater Britain Messenger, page 60)

Context (end of previous article)

made to extinguish the fire. The house just above the officers was wrecked by a shell in the great bombardment of July 1915.”

Chateau d’Oex.

The Rev. E. Dudley Lampen writes :—

“On Thursday, March 8, the organ, which has been placed in St. Peter’s Church to commemorate the historic stay of the British soldiers in Château d’Oex, was solemnly dedicated by the Rural Dean, and opened by Colonel S. C. F. Jackson, D.S.O., the Senior Officer in command, who made an effective and sympathetic speech. It was a most interesting service, the dedication of a lasting memorial to this remarkable historical incident, the sojourn of 750 British soldiers in this valley. Although the day was inauspicious, and a driving snow blizzard prevented many attending, yet a large congregation assembled to assist in the setting apart of the organ for the service of God. Then an organ recital was given by Mr. G. Middleton Rowe, A.R.C.M., organist of All Saints’, Vevey.

“This organ will be a valuable monument to our soldiers, and we hope to put up a brass tablet to state the fact of the organ having been built as a memorial to the British interned troops.

“Colonel Jackson is most kindly interesting himself in the scheme, even as Colonel [?] hart set the project going at the commencement by acting as Hon. Treasurer. All the officers are assisting in the completion of the work. We are offering for their deliverance from Germany.

“Our soldier or-ganist, Lance-Corpl. Lester, is a great help in the services of the church. He is not merely an organist at two important churches in England and is a performer of considerable talent and execution”

Calais.

The Rev. W. P. Parker writes :— follows of the Good Friday and Easter services:—

“The tastefully decorated church was quite full, chairs having to be placed at the back and all up the aisles, to say nothing of the lobby. It was most enjoyable to hear the large congregation singing the well-known Easter hymns. On Good Friday evening a male voice choir of forty members gave a capital rendering of Stainer’s Crucifixion, which was much appreciated by the officers and men present. There are very many at the Calais base who take a real interest in the church; they say it reminds them so much of home. This is especially the case with choristers who have sung in their respective churches for years.

“Our weekly evening for officers and the [cut off]

Handwritten annotation

None visible.

Facsimile of the original cutting: Chateau d'Oex (from Greater Britain Messenger, page 60), The Greater Britain Messenger — date not established (issue undated) — **Facsimile** — *The Greater Britain Messenger*, page 60. Photographed from the bound volumes held by St Peter's. Open the full-size scan.

End of the transcribed document

Notes by St Peter's — not part of the document above

St Peter’s and the 1916 internment

The Château-d’Œx chaplaincy was placed on the Colonial and Continental Church Society’s list in 1866, and for the thirty-three years before St Peter’s was built the English congregation had no building of its own. Served by seasonal chaplains, it met in the village’s Protestant church — the Temple, up on the hill — and, when the climb or the snow made that impractical, in the lounge of the Hôtel Berthod, the Pension Morier and the Salle des Catéchumènes. The season was a summer one — June to September, before winter sports drew visitors to the valley. The church was built in 1899, on land given by the Berthod brothers and with a loan from the Society; it was consecrated on 27 May 1902 by Thomas Edward Wilkinson, Anglican Bishop of North Europe, and enlarged in 1911, by which time the chaplain could no longer seat everyone who came.

From 1916 neutral Switzerland took in wounded and invalid prisoners of war from both sides — French, Belgian, German and British — released from enemy camps under agreements between their governments. Château-d’Œx received the British. The first train reached Montreux on 30 May 1916 carrying 304 men, including 32 officers. The chaplain, the Revd E. Dudley Lampen — the parish’s first permanent chaplain, in post since 1908, and assisted during the war by the Revd Isaac Hutchinson — later described the whole episode as “the sojourn of 750 British soldiers in this valley”.

St Peter’s was their parish church. They filled it for services, and one of the internees, a professional organist in England before the war, played the church’s American harmonium. In August 1916 Lampen wrote to The Times asking readers to fund a proper organ — “a permanent memorial of the historic sojourn of our British officers and men in this valley”. The fund’s treasurer was Colonel E. Vansittart of the Royal West Kent Regiment, himself one of the officers who had arrived on that first train. The organ was dedicated on 8 March 1917: a Goll of 1916, opus 462, and the organ still played in the church today.

These First World War reports were traced for the centenary of the internment, which Château-d’Œx marked on Sunday 29 and Monday 30 May 2016 — a hundred years to the day after the first train. The complete archive → · The fuller account of 1916 →

About this transcription

Source: The Greater Britain Messenger — date not established (issue undated)
Archive item: commemoration-st-peters-organ (1 image)
Transcription: Machine-transcribed in two independent passes.
Status: Verified before publication — two independent transcriptions were compared, and any reading still in doubt is left unresolved and noted below rather than settled.
⚠️ The archive filename’s date is wrong for this item. The date above is taken from the cutting’s own annotation or masthead, which is the authority.

Transcribed verbatim, preserving the spelling, punctuation and capitalisation of the original. Square brackets mark a reading that is uncertain or a passage cut off by the edge of the scan. Where the text of a figure or a name could not be established, it is shown as unresolved rather than guessed.

Editorial notes

Uncertain readings

“Colonel [?] hart” — The surname or initial + surname after “Colonel” in the second paragraph of the Chateau d’Oex letter is unclear; appears to read as two words, possibly “Wane hart” or similar, but exact reading uncertain due to print quality and abbreviation.
[cut off] — Right column final paragraph cuts off mid-sentence; last phrase is incomplete.

Chateau d'Oex (from Greater Britain Messenger, page 60) — The Greater Britain Messenger — date not established (issue undated)

Context (end of previous article)

Handwritten annotation

Questions answered